Oxygeme by Pablo Pro

January 31, 2013

Text Margherita Dessanay

With Pablo Pro's project Oxygeme (Oxygen), water proves itself to be a special medium for its visually powerful sensuality and its multi-layered metaphorical connotations.

Artists have often exploited the almost magical effect of the human body suspended in water. It's just physics, but the apparent weightlessness lends itself to fantasies of different dimensions and universes.

It does not come as a surprise that Pro, like other artists, connects the image of a body in water with dance (the models for Oxygeme are dancers) and nudity. His visual universe is composed as if obeying laws of harmony, grace and simplicity.

Pro's work accentuateds water's symbolic associations, showing the air bubbles surrounding the figures. In a physical and metaphorical process of ascension, these bubbles condense the idea that life is a harmonious cyclical journey. Just as bubbles oppose no resistance to the organic laws, Pro's Oxygeme is a visual meditation on the mental barriers we build up once we walk away from our original state. To plunge in water thus invites a re-connection with our origins.Oxygeme is on show at Mondo Galeria in Madrid from 7 February.